Dubai-based Public Relations Expert Is New Presidential Communications Office Assistant Secretary

DUBAI, UAE—A Dubai-based Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) and public relations expert, Arthur Lawrence ‘Art’ Los Baños has been appointed as Assistant Secretary at the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) and will be reporting to PCO Acting Secretary Dave Gomez in Malacañang from early December.

Known in Dubai’s community as “Tito Art," Los Baños has been an OFW for the past two decades and used to be a Filipino community leader in the United Arab Emirates, where he became the chairman of the Philippine Independence Day executive committee in Dubai in 2008 and was one of the founders of the Filipino Social Club.

Currently, he is the Head of Corporate Communications of a global energy logistics company in Dubai for the past 13 years, where his work has brought him to South Korea, England, Sri Lanka, Kenya, South Sudan, and across the GCC.

“I am doing very well professionally here but I am willing to sacrifice material wealth over the opportunity to serve the Philippines as a government official. I would like to be based in the UAE so it would be ‘time-zone practical’ for me to reach out to the more than three million Filipinos spread across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). I would like to communicate with my kababayans in EMEA who could help promote the Philippines as an investment destination,” stated Los Baños, who has also been listed as one of the 100 Most Influential Filipinos in the Gulf by Illustrado Magazine for three years, and in the Legacy 300 Edition in 2020.

Los Baños was also included in the Philippines’ Top 30 Leaders on LinkedIn in 2022. Aside from being a successful professional, he was chosen in the inaugural list for “sharing his time and talent with the Filipino Community in the UAE and globally, and even with Africans and Mozambicans in Mozambique as the Mission Country Coordinator of Couples for Christ".

“My role is to uphold the mission of PCO which is to provide accurate, timely and compelling information on the initiatives, policies, priority programs, and projects of the Marcos Administration to overseas Filipinos and relevant global stakeholders,” added Los Baños.

As a public service to the Filipino community, he also co-hosted the radio talk show Filipino Excellence in the Middle East (FEME) with Rachel Salinel on Dubai Eye 103.8 FM, an English talk station in the UAE, where they invited individuals from various professional and socio-economic classes to share their respective struggles, triumphs and principles.

Before relocating to Dubai with his family in 2001, Los Baños used to be the Corporate Affairs and Communications Manager of United Laboratories. He has a Political Science degree from the University of Santo Tomas and has taken the Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Program of the Ateneo School of Government in the UAE.